The Pandora Deception--A Novel

by David Bruns

  When JP exited the elevator into the upper-level living quarters, he expected to find everyone at breakfast, but the common room was deserted. He checked the security monitors, cycling through the screens until he found them. It looked like the entire team was in the viewing area for the level-four biosafety room. Most of the basic work was done in less secure labs. The BSL-4 lab, which required positive-pressure biohazard suits, was only used when they handled live viruses.

  JP’s pulse raced as he hurried to the stairs. Talia had said they were close to a breakthrough on the next version of the virus. Maybe this was it.

  He clattered down the steps to the lowest level of the compound, and strode toward the knot of people crowded at the end of the hall. He heard Talia’s voice, her tone excited, and a reply came through the intercom.

  “It’s JP,” one of the women said to Talia.

  When Talia turned toward him, her face was flushed with excitement.

  “We’ve done it, JP!” She pumped a fist in the air. “We’ve done it.” She threw herself at him and planted a kiss on his lips. Her body pressed against him, her energy contagious.

  The rest of the scientists crowded around them. They were like children, with their expressions of rapturous glee and the way they awkwardly high-fived each other.

  “Okay, I take it the news is good,” JP said, with a smile. “How about you share your new toy with an outsider?”

  Talia motioned for Greta to do the explanation. “She did most of the modifications, so I’ll let her explain.”

  Greta beamed. “This is so exciting.” She took a deep breath. “Our first test proved we could control the latency of the Ebola virus, remember?”

  JP nodded, recalling the test with the rhesus macaques.

  “The follow-on work showed we could amplify a known strain of virus.”

  JP nodded again. He felt Talia’s hand tighten on his arm as she reacted to the reminder of the discovered test in Yemen.

  Greta continued. “Now we have successfully combined Ebola with the paleo-flu virus. We have aerosolized Ebola paired with a completely unknown flu-virus template. Let’s see the Blue Team figure this one out!” She high-fived Lakshmi again.

  Talia touched the intercom button so she could be heard inside the lab where Dr. Lu and Faraj waited in bulky positive pressure suits. “Xianshan, can you show the microscope pictures again, please?”

  She positioned JP in front of the high-definition displays. He saw the familiar tangled string image of the Ebola virus next to a cluster of spherical flu virus samples.

  “This is what we started with,” Talia said. “The high-latency Ebola and the paleo-flu virus.” She tapped the keyboard, and the screen showed a sphere twice the size of the original flu virus, with large glycoprotein protrusions from the Ebola virus studding the exterior.

  “And this is the finished product. A virus within a virus.” Talia’s eyes shone and she seemed close to tears as she gripped her lover’s hand. “A true chimera.

  “This is it, JP,” she whispered. “I can feel it. This is it.”

  “What about delivery?” JP asked. “How confident are you that it can be aerosolized?”

  Dr. Lu’s precise voice took on a robotlike quality through the intercom. “With the flu virus as the carrier, this has the characteristics of an airborne virus with the theoretical lethality of Ebola. We don’t know for sure if we’ve retained the effectiveness of the Ebola virus until we test it on live specimens, but I see no reason why that can’t be achieved.”

  “How long will that take?” JP asked.

  “The latency in this version is three days,” Lu replied.

  JP was already planning in his head. Three days for an internal test, but they would need a real-world test. Yemen was no longer viable, so he needed another test site.…

  “JP,” Talia’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “You’re not listening to me.”

  He realized the entire group of scientists was watching him. “I’m sorry. It’s just so overwhelming, such good news.”

  “I think we all agree with that, but what about a name?”

  “A name?”

  “Yes.” Talia looked back at all the scientists, who nodded in unison. “We all feel like we’ve given birth in a way. Our creation deserves a name and since you’re the proud papa, we think you should be the one to do the honors.”

  A thousand ideas flooded JP’s mind. Chaos … Shiva … the list went on and on.

  “I think of this as our child,” Talia whispered. “Something we created together from the seeds of humanity. It’s beautiful.”

  JP absorbed the inquiring looks of the team.

  “You’re right,” he said, looking at the screen. “I think we should call her … Pandora.”

  “Pandora,” Talia said, as if savoring the taste of the word on her tongue. “I think it’s a marvelous name.”

  “We should get a sample to the Blue Team as soon as possible,” JP said. “Prepare a sample and I’ll take it with me in the morning.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Project Deliverance, undisclosed location in Sudan

  Where in the holy hell was this place? Rachel wondered.

  She followed Kasim’s broad back up a flight of stairs, taking her away from JP and whatever was behind that elevator door. Kasim waved a badge in front of a pad and she heard a magnetic lock disengage. She also saw the glint of a camera lens above the door.

  The interior room had the look and feel of an army barracks. Neatly made-up cots lined both walls all the way to an open kitchen area. Rachel automatically counted the beds. Thirty. To her left stood a double-wide opening, and a smell told her the latrine was through there. Adjacent to the rows of beds was a carpeted lounge area with four flat-screen TVs and a small fleet of sofas. Two huge black men occupied a sofa, playing a first-person-shooter game. They didn’t look up when Kasim and Rachel stepped into the room.

  Kasim strode down the center of the barracks with Rachel in tow.

  “Why so many guards?” Rachel asked in Arabic. “You expecting an invasion?”

  Kasim shrugged. “I get paid. I don’t ask questions.”

  They reached the open kitchen area at the far end of the room, where two men were preparing food. They eyed Rachel.

  “We don’t get many women here,” Kasim said with a snide smile. “Actually, you’re the first. The men will be expecting to be entertained.”

  The two men at the kitchen counter broke into laughter.

  “The only entertainment I’ll be providing is when I kick your ass,” Rachel said to the nearest one.

  He froze, his dark skin reddening. “You dare to speak to me like—”

  “Shut it, Rocky,” Kasim barked. “Zula is a guest of the boss, and she will be treated that way. She’s here for one night, let’s not be animals.”

  “One night, huh?” Rocky sneered at her. “We could make it a good one.”

  “In your dreams, asshole,” she shot back. Rocky’s skin took on a shade of deeper red.

  “I see you make friends everywhere you go, Zula,” Kasim said. “Think on it, woman. There are many of us and only one of you. The boss is busy with his own woman and it’s a long night.”

  Rachel considered her odds and decided to take the high road. “How about you just show me a place where I can take a nap and we’ll call it even?”

  Kasim passed through the kitchen into a short hallway. He pointed to an open door on the right. “You can stay there. That’s Rocky’s room.” He jerked his thumb at the one on the left. “That’s my room—in case you get lonely.”

  Rachel surveyed Rocky’s room from the doorway. Despite his rough talk, Rocky appeared to be a fastidious man. The room consisted of a single bed with a nightstand and lamp, a footlocker, a small closet, and a sink. The bed was neatly made with crisp hospital corners and the floor swept. The only decoration in the room was a tattered poster of Sylvester Stallone as a boxer in the movie Rocky.

  Rachel closed the door
and opened the footlocker. Socks, underwear, workout gear, and two pairs of shoes. The closet held hanging clothes. The same olive-green paramilitary uniform Kasim and the rest wore, plus a few civilian shirts and pants. Rachel checked the collar of the civilian shirt. The tag had been removed. She checked the pants and found the same thing.

  She heard a noise in the hallway and quickly closed the closet. Rocky pushed the door open.

  “Don’t you know how to knock?” Rachel said. “Or didn’t they teach you that in the Janjaweed?”

  “My room, my rules.” He threw a blanket at her. “Don’t touch my stuff.” He slammed the door closed on his way out.

  Rachel noticed he didn’t deny the Janjaweed comment. This entire operation, from Kasim’s bearing down to the way the beds were made, had military overtones. Janjaweed had been a shot in the dark, but that still didn’t tell her what was going on here.

  Rachel took off her shoes and sat on the edge of the bed. She looked at the blanket longingly. She was bone-tired. She’d stayed awake all night on the flight from Cyprus trying to figure out where they were going.

  As soon as they had gotten back on the Learjet, JP went on a full security lockdown. He took her mobile phone and weapon and locked both in the cockpit with the flight crew. The windows on the premier jet were self-tinting and JP turned them as dark as they would go.

  “Security precautions” was all he would say.

  JP had retrieved her from the Zodiac well after midnight, reeking of alcohol and in a foul mood after his meeting on the yacht. They went straight to the airport and boarded the jet. She thought they headed west after takeoff from Larnaca, but in the blacked-out cabin and deprived of her mobile phone, she was only guessing. Hours later, they landed in this desert hideaway.

  Her best guess, based on the atmosphere and the makeup of the security team, was that they were somewhere in Sudan. Kasim and his men were ex-Janjaweed militia, but this was not a Janjaweed operation.

  The physical conditioning and discipline of the men, the quality of the facility, and the attention to details such as the cut-off tags on the civilian clothes told her this was a professional, well-run security operation. Kasim knew what he was doing.

  By the time she had pieced together this much, it was lunchtime. She waited, but no one came to invite her to eat. After the noise in the kitchen died down, she put her shoes back on and left her room.

  Kasim was sitting at the table alone, drinking coffee and finishing the rest of his lunch. Everyone else had eaten and the dishes were washed and stacked neatly in a drying rack. Another sign of unit discipline.

  Rachel motioned to an empty seat next to Kasim. “May I?”

  The big black man took a deliberate sip of coffee. “Sit.”

  Rachel pulled out her chair. “What do they do down there?”

  “What do I care? I get paid.” He raised his eyebrows. “They’re doctors. Scientists. They stay down there and they look at test tubes. We stay up here and we stand guard over nothing, but I get paid. A lot.”

  “How many scientists are there?”

  Kasim’s eyes narrowed. “You ask a lot of questions.”

  Rachel took his empty lunch plate and carried it to the sink, where she proceeded to wash it and put it in the drying rack. She turned and crossed her arms, resting her hips against the counter. “I’m bored. I’m in the middle of Sudan without a phone, what am I supposed to do?”

  Kasim grinned. “No phones here.” He pointed to the video games and TVs in the corner. “We get all the best DVDs, all the best video games, but no phones. No internet. Not allowed.” His smile morphed into a leer. “I can think of something we could do.”

  Rachel briefly considered the cost-benefit of attempting to seduce Kasim and dismissed it. “I’ll pass. I’m not that desperate yet.”

  She went back to Rocky’s room and sat on the bed again. Kasim confirmed what she already suspected. They were cut off from the outside world—no internet, no satellite, no mobile phones, nothing that could be traced back to this compound.

  But JP had a phone. There would be crumbs of information—maybe more than that—on his device. If she could get her own phone back, she had cloning software installed, but the process was painfully cumbersome. His device needed to be unlocked and her phone practically on top of his. The cloning process might take fifteen minutes.

  But the potential for useful intel was staggering.

  Rachel fell asleep in the afternoon, waking just before the evening meal as the sun was setting outside. She splashed water on her face and poked her head out of the room.

  The men were gathering around the table, but there was no invitation to join them, despite the fact that at least three of them saw her.

  Screw it. She was famished. Rachel stepped into the kitchen and took a place at the end of the table. The conversation instantly died down and there were awkward, angry looks among the men.

  “Don’t mind me, gentlemen,” she said. “I’m just here to eat.”

  Kasim watched her from his perch at the head of the table but said nothing. The rest of the meal passed in silence.

  When she went back to her room, Rachel did not turn on a light. The sounds in the kitchen died away as the men settled in for the night. She stretched out on the bed in her clothes and thought through the problem again.

  What was JP hiding out here in the middle of the desert? That was a question worth answering.

  She dozed, then was awoken by the trill of a telephone ringing in Kasim’s room, across the hall.

  Rachel moved to the door and pressed her ear against it. She heard the slap of Kasim’s feet on the wooden floor. Then the ringing stopped and she heard the sound of a phone being picked up from its cradle.

  “Yes, boss.” Kasim’s voice, clogged with sleep. A long pause as he listened.

  “Two teams, tomorrow morning. Got it. How many men?” Another pause.

  “Understood.” He hung up the phone and she heard the creak of his bed as he lay back down.

  Rachel went back to the bed. JP needed two teams to do what?

  Rachel was up before the sun. She took a brief sponge bath in Rocky’s sink and dressed.

  Kasim’s door stood open and his room was empty. Rocky waited for her in the kitchen.

  “Wait here for Kasim.”

  Rachel ate a quick breakfast of a red millet porridge and yogurt, washed down with hot tea. Kasim arrived just as she was finishing.

  “Boss wants you,” he said.

  Four black SUVs were parked inside the underground garage. Eight of Kasim’s men, all armed but dressed in civilian clothes, waited near two cars. The other two vehicles had armed and uniformed drivers standing by.

  Kasim pointed to one of the empty SUVs. “Get in.”

  Just as she reached the vehicle, the elevator door opened and she caught a glimpse of JP deep in conversation with a woman. She was dressed in traditional Muslim garb with a heavy head scarf and carried a padded tube under her arm about the size and shape of a small thermos.

  The woman looked up as the door opened and Rachel caught a glimpse of her face. High cheekbones, a wisp of auburn hair escaping the confines of her head scarf, and brilliant, flashing blue eyes.

  “In!” Kasim said from behind her.

  Rachel got in the passenger seat and closed the door. She watched in the side mirror as JP helped the woman into the back of the SUV behind them and leaned in. Rachel cracked open her car door.

  “… three days” was all she heard before Kasim pushed the door closed again.

  As JP climbed into the backseat of the SUV, the garage door of the compound opened. All four cars accelerated up the ramp into the bright sunshine. The two cars on Rachel’s right peeled away, headed north.

  Rachel looked into the rearview mirror. JP was watching her.

  “Who was that woman?” Rachel asked.

  JP pursed his lips, then drew a pair of sunglasses out of his jacket pocket. He looked out the window.

  �
��Nobody.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Lake Nasser, Egypt

  The atmosphere in the vehicle had been tense and silent since they crossed the Egyptian border, over two hours ago. The headlights from the lead SUV carved a dual cone of illumination into the darkness. The second, identical black SUV stayed right on their tail, its headlights two pools of light on the tinted back window.

  Rocky shifted in the passenger seat, wanting to crack a joke or do something to ease the tension. Instead, he retightened the straps on his body armor, the sound of ripping Velcro unnaturally loud in the quiet cabin.

  They had crossed the Egyptian border with Sudan in the desert to avoid detection. Before they linked up with the highway again, Nasri, who was driving, stopped the caravan and told them to gear up. During the stop, he also divided the explosives between the two vehicles.

  Rocky had been on countless ops with this crew and knew what to expect. They were professionals, ready to do whatever was required, which usually came down to whatever Kasim told them to do.

  Like Rocky, most of this crew had worked for Kasim for the last decade. They’d come a long way from their early days in the Janjaweed. From there, they’d been absorbed into the Sudanese Defense Forces as a paramilitary wing of the regular army.

  Working outside the system was something Kasim was good at. He always found a way to get them paid.

  Nasri slowed the car as a large painted sign loomed out of the darkness: MUBAREK PUMPING STATION, in Arabic and English lettering.

  Nasri keyed his radio. “This is it. Just like we planned it. Fast and furious.” He grinned at his own joke. Nasri was a big fan of the American movies of the same name.

  The road was crushed gravel, but it was fast and flat. Nasri switched off the air-conditioning and rolled down the window. Chill desert air rolled in.

  Rocky could smell the water, a humid, rotten smell left when fresh water receded from the banks of the lake. He squinted into the darkness, looking for a gleam of Lake Nasser.